Database Info

What happened after I deleted .apks in /system/app ?

Hello all,
I fell into a huge problem. I use a Nexus 5 16 GB variant with all sorts of games I can put inside of. Now I ran out of storage.
My smart ass told me search for culprits and I was ruthless on files as small as 50 MBs. . Now, then I saw a treasure trove of space which could be freed and that was in #/system/app. I deleted almost all of them and left behind some like Bluetooth.apk and NFC et al.
Now two things happened
1) I can no longer use the 'Explore Storage' in the Other category of Storage found i Settings app. It would say, Settings has Crashed.
2) I can no longer sync my contacts to Google as After asking to add account, it just asks again. Earlier I seamlessly used that feature.
I don't know what's broken more.
Please someone help.
Much thanks in advance.

Have you tried a full reset? Kinda of a risk... But worth it at times. My old phone I could delete all the system apps, then reset it and they'd all pop back up.

buffering.... said:
Have you tried a full reset? Kinda of a risk... But worth it at times. My old phone I could delete all the system apps, then reset it and they'd all pop back up.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have the ROM with me. Flashing that will ( or might) restore every functionality. But the point is why it did happen and unbreak the broken without flashing.

Why would you think that deleting anything from a system folder is a good idea...?
Just flash the system.img again. That should restore at least a working system, though I'd guess that you'll have to do some manual rework to restore lost apps. Your data should still be intact.
Just guessing, to be honest. I'm still astonished that you did this...
Have you considered an OTG USB stick? The attached photo shows an additional 128GB of storage on the tip of my little finger. I can post the links if anyone is interested.

dahawthorne said:
Why would you think that deleting anything from a system folder is a good idea...?
Just flash the system.img again. That should restore at least a working system, though I'd guess that you'll have to do some manual rework to restore lost apps. Your data should still be intact.
Just guessing, to be honest. I'm still astonished that you did this...
Have you considered an OTG USB stick? The attached photo shows an additional 128GB of storage on the tip of my little finger. I can post the links if anyone is interested.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't know why I did that. Maybe because I saw those apks lying there and thought to myself, what are they doing here. I deleted all of them.
The next part is more important now. I installed the same ROM on the same phone using multirom and then copied the whole system/app folder to my other ROMs broken app folder. And this helped remove the broken Settings functionality. But the Contacts functionality is still broken. Lastly I will flash the system image if I could not find the reason behind this. Thanks sir for the help.

backup before unlocking bootloader

Is there a way to back up everything before a wipe that restores well? The ones i've tried miss system settings and all app settings have to be reset. Titanium Backup was awesome but requires root., but something like that is what I'm after

tomplatz said:
Is there a way to back up everything before a wipe that restores well? The ones i've tried miss system settings and all app settings have to be reset. Titanium Backup was awesome but requires root., but something like that is what I'm after
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
This is a biggest issue Google hasn't provided a solution for. You can't backup an android phone unless you root... [emoji1418]
Sent from my SM-N986U using Tapatalk

Any decent apps anyone has found? I know TB level backup not possible

System settings and all app settings backup is hard. Usually, Samsung Kies, mobile data manager software, etc just help us back up data like contacts, text messages, photos, videos, music, apps, etc. Of course, there is no need to root Samsung phone before using them.

tomplatz said:
Is there a way to back up everything before a wipe that restores well? The ones i've tried miss system settings and all app settings have to be reset. Titanium Backup was awesome but requires root., but something like that is what I'm after
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Keep in mind once you unlock bootloader then KNOX will be permantly disabled and apps like samsung pay, samsung pass, encryption and some more will no longer work after this and even if you re-lock bootloader the KNOX will still be unavailable since it's so called safety thing in chip has ben cut so it becomes permanently hardware disabled.
So think before doing it, if you plan to use samsung pay and pass and such later on then avoid unlocking the bootloader.
Also warranty will be voided too.
Skickat från min SM-N986B via Tapatalk

tomplatz said:
Is there a way to back up everything before a wipe that restores well? The ones i've tried miss system settings and all app settings have to be reset. Titanium Backup was awesome but requires root., but something like that is what I'm after
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The best you can do is use the SD card as your data drive. All mission critical data goes on it.
Therefore no PC or internet connection is needed for a full restore. No wasted time transferring data from the PC or cloud.
All critical data, photos, vids, music, documents, settings backups for apks that let you, contacts and copies of all loaded apks and updates.
I use ApkExport to make copies of all my apks and system updates so after a reload I don't need Playstore and know exactly what to load, fast.
Get at least a .5 tb card so all the data used by the phone can easily fit plus 100 gb headroom.
I pretty much hit the ground running and a reload is 99% complete in about 5 hours with no loss of critical data.
Not copying settings for some apps and especially system settings is a better plan as any bad settings don't get carbon copied. Manual set up also keeps you in aware of what does what. Plus you will find and learn new tricks like this.
I reload about every 6 months to take full advantage of the new optimizations I incorporated since the last reload. Invariably you play with trash apps trying to find the good ones and the poorly written ones can leave a mess behind. It's simply impossible to weed out all the trash and subtle misconfigurations that happen over time.
A reload takes out the trash.
Each reload should get you a couple steps closer to device perfection.
Once you have a fast, stable platform be very cautious of any firmware or OS updates as it only takes one to wreck everything. Many times an "upgrade" turns into an ugly downgrade.
Many app updates are useless or wreck the the app as well.
No reason to fix something that ain't broke... once optimized leave it be.
Find something else to play with.

Just install Samsung Smart switch on your phone. And back up to the SD CARD.
You'll still need to setup individual apps but you will keep system settings.

pcriz said:
Just install Samsung Smart switch on your phone. And back up to the SD CARD.
You'll still need to setup individual apps but you will keep system settings.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you.
I forgot about this app.
Last time I used it transfering from a S4 to the 10+ it was a terror. However it should do much better on the same model/OS.
16 gb took 10 minutes to backup to a fast card plus you can see and edit its saved files.
The icon layout will be lost if it saves the theme/icon pack I will wuv it to death...
It should save some time... if not I'll reset again:laugh:

The legendary Tom Platz. Now that's a blast from my past lol

Limeybastard said:
The legendary Tom Platz. Now that's a blast from my past lol
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I have big legs too. Seemed to fit.

tomplatz said:
I have big legs too. Seemed to fit.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'll take your word for it. No need for pics. ?

Urgent: how to backup photos and contacts from a hacked Huawei P30 phone?

I have a Huawei P30 phone not rooted and never been in strangers hands.
Few months ago this crazy woman shared a fake video on my Facebook page. I clicked on it but won't open unless I installed a "flash plugin", obviously fake. I did it and the video won't open anyway. Few hours later she started to tease me about things I said privately to my friends via Whatsapp and Instagram, and in the following months she started insulting me with fake Instagram profiles every time I chatted privately with other girls, once making a clear reference to a picture I held in my private gallery.
I believe that the only way to get rid of this trojan/RAT is to factory reset my phone. But, considering I have more than 10 thousands photographies, 700 videos and 1500 contact numbers, I would like to save these datas, even manually.
To do this, can I 1) plug the hacked smartphone into my PC with a USB cable, while keeping them both OFFLINE, 2) then manually export contacts, photos and videos? Then 3) transfer these datas, always manually, into a brand new Iphone?
THANKS

A nice Russian girl
Rather sloppy not to keep backups and to wait even a day to purge that rootkit.
You could have other infected files on there now as well. Put it on a flash stick. Alternatively upload to cloud.
It needs to be scanned and even then there's malware that might evade detection. It could infect the PC as well if there's more hidden wuv packages. Malware jpegs are a terror, both Windows and Adroids are vulnerable to them... it only takes one. If present it/they must be deleted... thousands of images you say.
Oh my.
Reset all your passwords after the reload.

THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com

jwoegerbauer said:
THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO, I'd been reloaded by now

jwoegerbauer said:
THIS IS DUPLICATE TO THIS THREAD:
My Huawei P30 has been hacked with a RAT! can I still save my accounts?
I have a Huawei p30 phone with last security patch received in august 2020, not rooted and never been in strangers hands. This crazy psycopath woman has been stalking me badly for a year, but then in september 2020 she shared a weird (fake) video...
forum.xda-developers.com
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
OK SIR, you can delete that one thread because at the time I lacked many informations that I gathered only now. Please delete that one, NOT this one.

blackhawk said:
LMAO, I'd been reloaded by now
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
LMAO, I can't reload until I know for sure how to save my photos, videos and contacts! I also work with my Whatsapp and Gmail profiles!

blackhawk said:
A nice Russian girl
Rather sloppy not to keep backups and to wait even a day to purge that rootkit.
You could have other infected files on there now as well. Put it on a flash stick. Alternatively upload to cloud.
It needs to be scanned and even then there's malware that might evade detection. It could infect the PC as well if there's more hidden wuv packages. Malware jpegs are a terror, both Windows and Adroids are vulnerable to them... it only takes one. If present it/they must be deleted... thousands of images you say.
Oh my.
Reset all your passwords after the reload.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I made a scan of all the content on the hacked phone with 1) Kaspersky full version and then 2) Panda security dome full version but nothing was found. Then I exported all my photo albums and videos with a usb cable on my PC, and repeated a scan on it with Panda dome. Nothing was found again. No weird jpegs were ever sent to me. Only that damn video which asked to download a fake flash plugin on my Huawei.
What if I finally transfer all this stuff into an APPLE IPHONE? will it be compromised too?

Columbus93 said:
I made a scan of all the content on the hacked phone with 1) Kaspersky full version and then 2) Panda security dome full version but nothing was found. Then I exported all my photo albums and videos with a usb cable on my PC, and repeated a scan on it with Panda dome. Nothing was found again. No weird jpegs were ever sent to me. Only that damn video which asked to download a fake flash plugin on my Huawei.
What if I finally transfer all this stuff into an APPLE IPHONE? will it be compromised too?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Ideally you would have wiped everything on the phone and restored from known good backups.
iPhones are not impervious to malware.
Depends how resourceful and determined your hacker is. All that social media crap will be your undoing. You're wide open and an easy target.

Columbus93 said:
LMAO, I can't reload until I know for sure how to save my photos, videos and contacts! I also work with my Whatsapp and Gmail profiles!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Depending on what's been loaded the hacker could do all kinds of nasty stuff.
You're going to be enchanted if the reload gets infected too... the more time you wait, the more potential for greater damage.
We're just strangers on the internet... do you see a pattern here?
I do.

blackhawk said:
Ideally you would have wiped everything on the phone and restored from known good backups.
iPhones are not impervious to malware.
Depends how resourceful and determined your hacker is. All that social media crap will be your undoing. You're wide open and an easy target.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
my hacker just want to do me wrong and give me a hard time with insults, humiliations etc because she is a stalker psychopath who has been refused by me.
So, you are suggesting me to lose all my social media and more than 10.000 photos because a stalker psychopath decided to do so? No defence, no strategy against such a threath? I knwo social media is basically ****, but the sole idea to let this psychopath win because she decided so is unaccettable for me.

blackhawk said:
Depending on what's been loaded the hacker could do all kinds of nasty stuff.
You're going to be enchanted if the reload gets infected too... the more time you wait, the more potential for greater damage.
We're just strangers on the internet... do you see a pattern here?
I do.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dude I understand, but WHAT can I do? Delete everything while not even trying a backup? yesterday I even saw some strange notification about my phone having just been being link to google Chromcast.. beside I was at work, and never had Chromcast installed and nobody has in my house ! I just want to save my 10 thousands pictures before to thrash my phone!

Do what you want... dude.
You screwed up by not backing anything up for how long? Ever?
So save the data and hope for the best.
I have over a dozen hdds I use for backup in different locations. My phone SD card is redundantly backed up with 3+ copies on different hdds. All are offline.
The time to do something was before this happened... first mistake.
Second mistake, still using the device with known malware on it.
If found something like that on my phone this morning by now it either be gone or the phone be reloaded.

blackhawk said:
Do what you want... dude.
You screwed up by not backing anything up for how long? Ever?
So save the data and hope for the best.
I have over a dozen hdds I use for backup in different locations. My phone SD card is redundantly backed up with 3+ copies on different hdds. All are offline.
The time to do something was before this happened... first mistake.
Second mistake, still using the device with known malware on it.
If found something like that on my phone this morning by now it either be gone or the phone be reloaded.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I know that I screwed up by never backing anything up.. hard lesson learned. But it's like a month and nobody, not even professionals, could tell me how to safely backup my stuff before to wipe everyhting out! This hacker is owning my phone by such a long time before I could understand what had happened that she literally had time to backup herself ALL my stuff, even the smallest details in my life! I even had to block my bank accounts!!! Anything worse than that?
All the worse already happened, that's the problem. And considering that, I feel like I have nothing to lose anymore, so I just want to pick all my personal stuff or at least my accounts and savely bring them into another phone, that I just bought. An iphone 12. But looks like a complicated math equation to export stuff from a hacked phone into another phone!
What If I reboot this hacked phone with safe mode, and I transfer all my stuff and files in this mode? No trojan should be active in safe mode, isn't it?

I already told you, a flash drive... I would use two and make 2 backup copies.
Confirm the data is complete and readable on the flash drive(s) before wiping phone.
See what happens on the new load before and after the old data is reloaded.
A month? Jeeeesze... stop screwing around.

@Columbus93
Pulling data of interest only is possible if
Phone's Android's USB-service mode is set to adb,mtp
Phone is OTG capable and/or phone's Android is ADB enabled

I have no idea how to do that
jwoegerbauer said:
@Columbus93
Pulling data of interest only is possible if
Phone's Android's USB-service mode is set to adb,mtp
Phone is OTG capable and/or phone's Android is ADB enabled
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I'm sorry but I have no idea how to even control if these options are enabled. I just enabled developer options and entered developer menu but I don't know how to check these options.

Some steps for your reference.
1. Make sure that your Windows PC has both the latest Windows updates and a strong enough security software installed.
2. Connect the P30 to your PC in order to make a full data backup.
3. Reset your P30( Factory Reset + Wipe Cache Partition ).
4. Reset the passwords of your social network apps ASAP.
5. For the data backed up from the mobile phone, or even the entire Windows PC, run a full security scan.

Columbus93 said:
I have a Huawei P30 phone not rooted and never been in strangers hands.
Few months ago this crazy woman shared a fake video on my Facebook page. I clicked on it but won't open unless I installed a "flash plugin", obviously fake. I did it and the video won't open anyway. Few hours later she started to tease me about things I said privately to my friends via Whatsapp and Instagram, and in the following months she started insulting me with fake Instagram profiles every time I chatted privately with other girls, once making a clear reference to a picture I held in my private gallery.
I believe that the only way to get rid of this trojan/RAT is to factory reset my phone. But, considering I have more than 10 thousands photographies, 700 videos and 1500 contact numbers, I would like to save these datas, even manually.
To do this, can I 1) plug the hacked smartphone into my PC with a USB cable, while keeping them both OFFLINE, 2) then manually export contacts, photos and videos? Then 3) transfer these datas, always manually, into a brand new Iphone?
THANKS
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Huaweis hisilicon chips have huge root security issues xd.
Lmao maybe one of the zero day exploits imparted in this? Who knows

Columbus93 said:
I have no idea how to do that
I'm sorry but I have no idea how to even control if these options are enabled. I just enabled developer options and entered developer menu but I don't know how to check these options.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
For HUAWEI devices the HiSuite utility exists with which you can transfer files from phone to computer.
All you have to do is to activate on phone USB Debugging and additionally turn on HDB.

James_Watson said:
Some steps for your reference.
1. Make sure that your Windows PC has both the latest Windows updates and a strong enough security software installed.
2. Connect the P30 to your PC in order to make a full data backup.
3. Reset your P30( Factory Reset + Wipe Cache Partition ).
4. Reset the passwords of your social network apps ASAP.
5. For the data backed up from the mobile phone, or even the entire Windows PC, run a full security scan.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you sir, you're precious. You're all being precious. One redundant question since I'm passing from my Huawei hacked phone to a brand new apple Iphone 12. At first boot time, It asks me the possibility to export selected datas from a PC or Android phone, by using an app called "switch to iOS". Can I also do that or is it better doing the whole manual thing we're talking about, avoiding such "in app" data transfers?

Recover deleted photos

Hi everyone,
Two days ago, accidentally I managed to delete all the photos of my camera album on my S6 Edge (SM-G925F).
I long tapped the album in gallery, just as i would have done with a photo then clicked delete.
It seemed to take too long, so I clicked cancel. But it was too late. All was gone.
I have well, most of them backed up but still missing quite a few.
So far I tried to recover using the following apps:
Dr. Fone (both on the device itself and from computer).
UltData for Android (from laptop),
Dumpster Recover (on the phone),
DiskDigger (on phone)
But all they show me is photos that are still available on the device, or are in some app cache. ( Profile pics of people on Facebook, etc...)
Note: I tried all these methods both before and after rooting the device. (I read somewhere that rooting might help, but I simply get more crap...)
The device is running Android 7.0 (the latest update from Samsung.)
Has anyone managed to recover lost photos from an S6 so far?
What apps would you recommend?
Why can I not see those pics anywhere?
Does samsung have some special way to erase your storage if u delete your photos?
I cannot seem to find many search results about it, probably not many people use this device anymore
Thanks in advance for any help,
Agoston

Probably no longer recoverable after DrFone.
Pay the fee and get what it can recover.
It encrypts its results (using up more drive space) and presumably makes the original data inaccessible to other recovery apps.
Recovered jpegs files will be disassociated from their exif files though; no timestamps, original #, shooting or location data.
The only way to reliably prevent data loss is to redundantly back it up before it happens, unfortunately.

I did pay the fee, but it cannot find them either...
In the main window it showed 1090 photos, on the side it showed it found 10 000, but at recovery it got stuck at around 5000....

dagoston93 said:
I did pay the fee, but it cannot find them either...
In the main window it showed 1090 photos, on the side it showed it found 10 000, but at recovery it got stuck at around 5000....
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None were backed up anywhere?
It may take a long time to retrieve them and not actually be hanging... be careful!!!
Make sure it has all needed permissions.
No clue how to use that app. Try their support and Google search to try to find out what's going on.
Don't mess with that app or anything on the phone or you may lose what it found completely.
Normally I say clear app data and the system cache but NOT in this case!

blackhawk said:
None were backed up anywhere?
It may take a long time to retrieve them and not actually be hanging... be careful!!!
Make sure it has all needed permissions.
No clue how to use that app. Try their support and Google search to try to find out what's going on.
Don't mess with that app or anything on the phone or you may lose what it found completely.
Normally I say clear app data and the system cache but NOT in this case!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Most of them is backed up just the ones in the last few months aren't.
It turned out during a chat with their support not long ago, that my phone is not supported by their app, and i will get a refund from them.
But the question stands...Is there any app out there that supports the recovery from an SM-G925F?
I didnt seem to find any, but I hope someone knows one

Question Worth rooting phone to attempt photo recovery?

First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.

ghostgundam742 said:
First of all I know I'm really stupid for doing this, I blame sleep deprivation.
2 days ago I imported all the photos from my z flip 3 to my ipad. After completing the import I used the option at the end of the import to delete off the phone. Found out tonight that the imported photos were only at ~400x400px.
Now I can't find the photos anywhere on the phone.
I have checked the recycle bin/trash in the photos and files apps but there is nothing in there. I have also tried Tensorshare Ultdata recovery, but no luck with that either. https://www.tenorshare.com/products/android-data-recovery.html
Would it be worth rooting the device to allow for a deeper scan of the file system, the phone is completely stock currently. If not is there anything else I can try or should I take it to a data recovery company?
Thank you taking the time to read and for any assistance you can share.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
rooting it would format data, which in turn would generate new encryption key when you boot next time so you would be in even more of a mess sadly, if you didnt have online backup taking it to data recovery company might be your best choice

Thank you very much for the reply and advice, I dived a bit deeper and it turned out that the import was successful, there was a duplicate thumbnail image that was showing first.

Sounds like you solved it, but having gone through some fun data loss in the past, I wanted to leave this here for posterity.
If you need to recover data, do not root. Do not reboot. Do not delete or add anything unnecessary. The best results come from doing the least. When an image is deleted, it is similar to tearing up a physical photo and throwing it in the trash. The data still exists, but can be fragmented. The more you do, the more likely some or all of that data will be overwritten and become unrecoverable.
After searching through about 100 different recovery programs, I had the best results with https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.defianttech.diskdigger
It is the equivalent of the recovery programs for a computer, so it will show you thumbnails from that Facebook account of the ex you stalked 6 months ago in the results. It will also find almost anything that was deleted through normal means. Last time I used it personally was a couple years ago, but the reviews seem to imply it is still pretty effective.
Similar to what you described, you will also end up with a lot of thumbnails and previews. The easiest way to handle that is to run all of it through https://dupeguru.voltaicideas.net/ with the Picture option and the setting to "Match pictures of different dimensions" enabled. This will group all of the thumbnails and the originals to let you get rid of the junk.
Disclaimer: This is only personal preferences. I am a professional, but both apps listed in this post were downloaded free and used without any premium or paid features. This is not a sponsored suggestion.